


Repeated Image

by Llewcie



Category: Hannibal (TV) RPF, Hannibal Extended Universe - Fandom
Genre: Hannibal Extended Universe, Kissing, Language Kink, M/M, Pining, Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-18
Updated: 2015-11-18
Packaged: 2018-05-02 04:41:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5234501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Llewcie/pseuds/Llewcie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mads likes to block the hallways so Hugh has to squeeze by him.  Somehow this turned into language kink.  I'm not sorry.  @Catchclaw, you are a terrible (wonderful) influence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Repeated Image

Hugh opened the hotel door to a sleepy-looking Mads, hair only finger-combed, unlit cigarette hanging from his lips and his worn leather set bag slung over one shoulder. Mads always brought books to set to read, and he read voraciously in a dozen genres. Yesterday it had been Donna Leon, and last week he had been paging through Arundhati Roy, reading bits aloud to Hugh who lounged next to him in the makeup trailer. “ _The way her body existed only where he touched her. The rest of her was smoke,_ ” he quoted, his accent licking around the sibilants and fricatives. Or, " _He folded his fear into a perfect rose. He held it out in the palm of his hand. She took it from him and put it in her hair._ ” Not that Hugh remembered every word he spoke in those quiet mornings, nor wrote them down in a moment's privacy to read over them later. Not that Hugh had rested his head on his own shoulder to watch Mads read, even after Mads had gone silent again, his eyes soft over the pages. Not that. 

And now, in the predawn that was their morning, the never-enough-sleep dragging against Hugh's shoulders, he fantasized that Mads would bring poetry one day, or even that he would be brave enough to loan him a book of Richard Siken, just to hear him say, " _Here is the repeated image of the lover destroyed,"_ his smoke-roughened voice lilting upwards at the end, the r's swallowed to rounded edges while the l's were tongued firmly. His own throat went dry at the thought.

Mads turned his body in an 'after you' gesture, and Hugh pressed past him into the humming lights of the hotel hallway. For a moment, he savored the slight give of Mads' hips against his thigh, and a soft exhale against his bare neck. A shiver washed over him and his skin prickled with gooseflesh, and he savored what he could and let Mads shut the door behind them. And then in backseat of the car, rain backlit by streetlamps dripping down the windows, Mads' hip was pressed again into his own, his bag on side by the door rather than in the middle or at his feet. Hugh resisted dropping his head to Mads' shoulder, but only just.

*

In-between takes on the set, as the crew efficiently reset the scenes, Mads and Hugh would sit side by side on the tall director's chairs and murmur to each other about what they felt in the emotion of the scene. This was the crypt scene, shot in darkness, and Hugh had to do take after take to capture every angle. It was simpler to catch hold of Will in the dark, with the thought of Hannibal just beyond the light. Hugh felt him there-- not Mads but Hannibal, with all of his anguish and desperate heartbreak insinuated like music between the pillars. When the call came to cut for reset, Hugh had to stand for a moment just to gather himself back in. He turned to see Mads , back up against a pillar, blocking his way. 

"I can feel him here." Hugh's voice wavered, or Will's really, the soft American accent never far from his lips in these places. Mads smiled, nodding, understanding fully where no one else might, even Bryan. He held out a hand to usher Hugh past him in the tight space, and briefly, obscenely, their hips notched together. Mads' voice was barely more than a whisper as he tucked his mouth next to Hugh's ear.

"Come tonight. For a beer." Hugh jerked his hips back and slipped past, the unconscionable reaction of his body flaming his cheeks, making him grateful for the dim light. He nodded, desperate to escape, desperate to not. 

*

The night ran customarily late, and it was well after nine when they escaped into the backseat of their shared car. Hugh had no more energy for pretense, and his head drooped low against Mads' shoulder, ear pressed against the pulse in the older man's throat. He could both hear and feel Mads' steady breathing over the shushing sound of the car's tires on the wet Florentine roads. Traffic was heavy around them but Hugh tuned it out, his attention focused on the heat of Mads' body. "I missed you," he murmured, and then realized possibly that he shouldn't be speaking with his defenses so lowered. Mads turned gently into him to press an affectionate kiss to his forehead, which echoed though his body in warm waves. Kisses from Mads were rare and to be treasured, and Hugh could recall only a few against his cheeks, none as intimate as this.

"And I you," he replied, as if nothing could be more obvious. The long days of filming without the other were mostly through, though, and Florence was theirs for a few months. Hugh let the kiss settle into him and sighed, unable to reply in words.

*

They had parted at the elevator, Mads begging time for a shower and Hugh echoing the desire for his own. Mads had promised beer, but Hugh rescued a six pack from his mini fridge, just in case, and headed back down a floor in sleep pants and flannel, his feet tucked into shearling slippers and his hair in floppy, damp disarray. Mads greeted him at the door in a t-shirt and track pants, his feet bare and his hair spiked outward from a rough towel dry. He gestured to the interior of the room but didn't move out of the way, and it dawned on Hugh like a slow motion bucket of water, coursing in warm rivulets down his body. "You do this on purpose," he accused gently, teeth showing in a half-admiring grin.

Mads put on a great show of surprised innocence. "I don't know what you mean, Hugh." But when Hugh pushed against him he could feel the jut of Mads' firm cock against the crease of his thigh and it was Mads' turn to blush, laughing in chagrin. "I became worked up just thinking about your body against mine as you came through the door." He paused, their bodies flush, barely touching, as Hugh looked into his bourbon dark eyes. He rocked his hips into Mads', acknowledging his own culpability, and Mads' eyes went impossibly darker. Hugh felt his heart burst into the bright exquisite pain of arousal , allowed Mads to take the six pack from his hand to toss lightly on a chair and followed easily when Mads tugged him inside the room by his hip, watching him all the while as the door clicked shut behind them. For a long moment, Mads hesitated, and then looked down at his hand of Hugh's hip. "I… apologise that I have been indulging my attraction to you." He looked as contrite as he could with his cheeks high with heat. "I never meant… to compromise you."

Hugh slipped a hand around Mads' lower back, pulling his slender hips tight against his own. "You haven't," he whispered. He smiled, "Or if you did, it was back when you began reading to me."

Mads laughed huskily. "Leaves of Grass. I chose the most erotic parts that I could find."

Hugh looked into his memory, and found it came easily. " _I am a man who, sauntering along without fully stopping, turns a casual look upon you and then averts his face, leaving it to you to prove and define it, expecting the main things from you._ "

Mads' eyes were bright with surprise. "You remember?"

Hugh shrugged within the cage of Mads' arms, falsely nonchalant. "I may have written it down."

Mads kissed him then, at first hesitant, and then with the full weight of joyful warmth behind the press of his eager mouth. Hugh arched his neck up into it, letting his body relax into Mads' embrace even as he angled his head to kiss deep, his tongue licking over the roof of Mads' mouth. After years of turning away, pulling back, and listening to only the echoes of Mads' voice in his head, he was ready to be compromised.


End file.
